/ 21 October 2000

So much for Media Freedom Day ?

THE government has been slammed for trampling press freedom and “returning to the old apartheid days” after police stormed international and local media offices in South Africa and seized video footage as evidence against a Muslim vigilante leader facing murder and terrorism charges.

National prosecution official Sipho Ngwema said the police confiscated footage of the August 1996 killing of notorious Cape Town gang boss Rashaad Staggie from Reuters and SABC television.

Mathatha Tsedu, the chairman of the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF), condemned the seizures – which coincided with local Media Freedom Day – saying it would have “a crippling effect on the media’s ability to do its work.”

AP bureau chief Terry Leonard called the action “abuse of power” and made it clear he did not consent to the raid.

“It’s unconstitutional,” he said, adding that his organisation reserved the right to challenge the police action.

Ngwema said the media raid was “deemed necessary for ensuring that the courts can dispense justice” and added that more searches might follow. “We might go to others who have similar material,” he said.

People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) national co-ordinator Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim has been charged with Staggie’s murder. He is back in court on November 13.

This is the latest twist in the ongoing saga to get picture material of the gang boss’s lynching during a Pagad march to his Salt River, Cape Town, house on August 4, 19965. He was beaten, shot and burnt.

For the past two years police and justice officials have repeatedly tried and failed to obtain copies. Section 205 subpoenas were issued during an inquest into Staggie’s death. The broadcast media organisations together with newspapers like the Cape Times, Cape Argus and Die Burger refused to hand over picture material.

Ebrahim is facing 26 charges, including one of terrorism, for allegedly ordering several bombings outside Cape Town in 1997 and 1998 – part of 192 blasts in and around the city in the past four years.